It’s Halloween! Time for us to put on our masks and parade around as someone or something else. The funny thing is, most of us do this all the time. We project an image of ourself out to the world. We feel we must – the world expects us to “be” a certain way.

But what if we all worked to be our authentic self all the time? Why do we put on masks? Because being authentic gets messy! You have to be vulnerable to be authentic. To be vulnerable is to be able to show the best part of you – your talents and strengths – along with the weakest part of you – your fears and insecurities. Not everyone likes to see the latter. It takes courage to be vulnerable.

We all have our moments of fear, worry and insecurity. They usually crop up when we are pushing ourselves into unfamiliar territory. We are pushing out of our comfort zone and into something new. These adventures allow us to learn and grow as individuals. We become stronger from these experiences. But the learning and the strength does not always come because we had a great, new adventure. The learning and strength come from facing, voicing and being able to “push” through our fear and our insecurity. The learning and strength come from “doing it anyway”.

So what about you. Do you have the courage to show your innermost self? Who do you trust enough to be “real” with?